Upcoming exhibit details life’s work and ‘golden hands’ of local needlepointer
'This is a figure who was part of our community, and her work enriched the lives of so many synagogues and so many people who went to synagogues'
Small stitches are garnering big attention. Next week, Rodef Shalom Congregation is showcasing the work of Barbara Trellis, a late Pittsburgher who completed multiple needlepoint projects for the Shadyside congregation and other area synagogues.
“People have always minimized handicraft, and to me it’s an undervalued artform,” Mayda Roth, Rodef Shalom’s director of development, said.
The exhibition, which begins March 26 and runs through the end of April, includes 12 panels detailing Trellis’ process and partnerships.
Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Heinz History Center, worked with Roth on the exhibit and said the panels rely heavily on Trellis’ scrapbooks.
The late artist’s albums include various indicators of her meticulous efforts, including 3-inch square mock-ups of patterns, drawings and miniatures.
“I thought they were so cool,” Lidji said of the scrapbooks. “They were her life’s work.”
Trellis, who died in November at age 94, spoke with the Chronicle in 2017 about her approach to creating Torah mantles, panels and various projects for local congregations, and how she got her start.
In 1951, the self-described “creative” graduated from Carnegie Tech. After securing a job with Bell Telephone, providing sewing and millinery instruction to employees, Trellis left to become a freelancer.
By the early 1970s, “I was teaching classes at three shops in the city,” she said.
In 1980, Trellis started partnering with Rodef Shalom. With help from members of the Sisterhood — Trellis tested interested parties to ensure requisite expertise — Trellis created Torah mantles in 1982, four high-backed bimah chairs in 1984 and Ten Commandments panels in 1987.
Trellis considered the latter — each panel, which hangs in Levy Hall, is 50 inches wide by 12½ feet tall — among her favorites.
“They are so big, and they fill the whole back of the wall,” she said.
Roth called the panels “breathtaking,” and said, “it is really hard to make sharp angles with fabric and make them look as perfect as they do on those panels in Levy.”
Trellis’ painstaking process is evident both from the finished items and her scrapbooks, Lidji said.
There’s a “degree of seriousness with which she took these projects,” he continued. “When you look through her scrapbooks you see how she got an assignment and would think about what the artistic problem was and how she could solve it.”
Trellis often scrutinized materials, colors and patterns, yet found a way to incorporate volunteer efforts and “maintain very high quality.”
Visitors to the exhibition will see the methods and outcomes of someone whose “golden hands” enhanced sacred settings, Roth said.
Trellis never received a retrospective throughout her life.
She was extremely “undervalued,” Roth said. “As someone who has done needlepoint, her work is priceless. From the pieces I’ve done, I can’t even imagine the hours and how much time it took her. You have to be exact and really patient.”
Lidji sees the upcoming show as a way to grant Trellis, and her medium, the appreciation they deserve.
For years, female artists, and fiber art in general, were “notoriously not taken very seriously by the art establishment,” he said.
“This is a figure who was part of our community, and her work enriched the lives of so many synagogues and so many people who went to synagogues,” he continued. The show, which honors the life and work of a talented artist, should be a reminder that “our community supports the arts, and makes a place for it. And if people decide to go down that road, the community has a place for it.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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